Analysts in the ETF industry have revealed their expectations for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to approve Ethereum’s futures ETFs. They now project a 75% likelihood of receiving the green light, aligning with last year’s odds given to Bitcoin futures ETFs in September 2021.
Since then, the SEC has approved several Bitcoin futures ETFs. These ETFs track the price of Bitcoin futures contracts instead of the underlying asset. ProShares launched the first one in October 2021, and it achieved remarkable success by attracting over $1 billion in assets under management within its first week.
Many crypto enthusiasts eagerly await the approval of spot ETFs. These exchange-traded funds would enable investors to purchase and hold cryptocurrencies directly. Notably, experts Seyffart and Balchunas have raised the likelihood of a spot Bitcoin ETF being approved from 50% a few weeks ago to 65%.
They mentioned the positive stance of SEC Chairman Gary Gensler toward cryptocurrencies. Additionally, they noted that prominent crypto investment firms like Grayscale and BlackRock are strategically converting their existing trusts and funds into ETFs.
Ethereum’s Milestones: ETF Approval And 2.0 Upgrade
The approval of Ethereum futures ETFs would mark another significant achievement for the cryptocurrency industry. Ethereum is not only a valuable asset but also a platform facilitating decentralized applications, smart contracts, and the thriving sector of decentralized finance (DeFi).
Ethereum is presently undergoing a substantial enhancement known as Ethereum 2.0, with the primary objective of enhancing scalability, security, and energy efficiency. This upgrade is set to achieve its goals by incorporating sharding and collaborating with layer 2 rollups.
Sharding divides the responsibility of managing large volumes of data required by rollups across the Ethereum network. The completion of this update is expected to complete in 2024.
Some analysts speculate that Ethereum has the potential to exceed Bitcoin’s market value in the future because of its wider range of use cases and innovative capabilities compared to the leading cryptocurrency.
However, Ethereum also faces some challenges and risks in its path such as include regulatory uncertainty, network congestion, high fees, security breaches, and competition from other blockchain platforms.
As per CoinMarketCap data, The current price of Ethereum is currently trading at $1,830.06, with a market cap of $219.91B. In the last 24 hours, it has experienced a trading volume of $4.75B and a decline of 0.28%. The circulating supply is approximately 120.17M ETH.
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